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A EEPLT. 
SPEECH 

OF 

HON. S. SHELLABAPtGER 

OF OHIO. 



DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF KEPRE8ENTATIVES, JA2TUAEY 27, 1S63. 



The House being in Committee of the Whole on the etate of the Union, Mr. 8HELLABAE- 
GER said: 

Mk. Chaikman ; The extinction of a nationality, in ■whose language are re- 
corded the first events of human history, whose constitution antedates the 
pyramids by three hundred years, and whose arts, literature, and laws are the 
sources of all future civilization, is recorded by its last historian in that one 
startling sentence, "sedition destroyed the city, and Romans destroyed the se- 
dition." A polity older than Thebes, a Government whose life outmeasures 
Assyrian, Chaldean, and Grecian dominion combined, has the story of its de- 
cline and fall summed up and its history told in this sentence with which the 
Hebrew State is dismissed forever from the families of men. 

Sir, the sedition which let Titus into the Hebrew capital was but the madness 
of those whom the gods would destroy. If the attacks we witnessed the other 
daj' upon this Government when my colleague [Mr. Vallandingdam] sought to 
persuade its subjects no longer to give to it their support in its present struggle 
against armed treason were mere madness, they would be relatively innocent. 
But, sir, we are spectators to-day of events in our midst, seen in an arranged, 
simultaneous, and systematized effort to paralyze the Government in this its 
life or death struggle with treason, and to persuade one half its subjects to 
" adhere to its enemies," which are not mere madness. I stop not to prove to- 
daj'. My countrymen, you no longer need proofs, I think. But whether you 
do or not I cannot stop to prove, but only to warn you to-day that the " enor- 
mous conspiracy" of which you were told in the last public utterance of Mr. 
Douglas, (ju the 1st of May, 1861, has its conspirators in the North — I do not 
say in this House — who there play their infernal part in this drama. The key- 
note was struck by Stephens at Savannah, on the 22d of March, 1861, when he 
said: 

" The process of diRintegration in the old Union will go on with almost absolate certainty, 
We are the nucleus of a growing power. Looking to the future," * * * * "it 
is not beyond the range of possibility, and even probability, thai all the great States ov Xaa 
NoETHWEST shall gravitate this way^ Our doors are wide enough open to receive them, but 
not until they are ready to assimilate with us in principle.'' 

And, sir, what we see in the North daily of these efforts to paralyze this, and 
to inspire with confidence the rebel government, are assigned and set parGp in 
the play of the conspirators in this "process of disintegration." 

My colleague [Mr. Vallandinguam] said the other day that "this Govern- 
ment, with an abitrary power which neither the Czar of Russia nor the Em- 
peror of Austria dare exercise, has struck down at a blow every badge and 
muniment of freedom." The gentleman from Kentucky, [Mr. Harding,] in 
substance, repeated this. But, sir, these two speeches, as to this point, are but 
imitations, and almost copies, of the speech of Mr. Breckinridge in the United 



states Senate, of I6th of July, 1861, made shortly before he entered the rebel 
service ; and all are the echoes of a message of Jefferson Davis. Another gen- 
tleman [Mr. Cox] alleges, in substance, that the six hundred and forty-one days 
of Mr. Lincoln's administration have divided the Union into two belligerent 
parts; have debauched the religion and morals of the nation ; have murdered, 
by its war, one hundred and iiity thousand of its children, and by disease as 
many more. Another gentleman [Mr. Riciiakdsox] attributes this war and 
its fearful calamities to the " President and his friends," because, he says, they 
could have avoided it by honorable compromise. 

I do not allude to these specimens of attack upon him who, as the national 
Executive, if we are to live, must be supported in the discharge of his consti- 
tutional duty to "protect and defend" the Government by all of the ](eople, to 
say that these are parts of the play of the conspirators, for that would be unpar- 
.liamentary. I do not refer to them for the purpose of influencing their authors by 
'any reply, for that would be useless. I do not allude to them for the purpose of 
finding fault with any criticism of the acts of this Administration. It is not the 
right merely, but the duty, of every representative of the people to watch, and 
by truthful, manly criticism, to guard the interests of the people and of their 
Government, by detecting and exposing the errors and wickedness of the highest 
and lowest officer of the Government. If a bad proclamation has been issued, 
if a vicious policy has been inaugurated, if a faithful and able commander has 
been superseded, or frauds have been committed, show these by patriotic and 
reasonable appeals to facts, and every patriot in the land will honor you, aud 
will leap to your support in corj-ecting the error. I bow in blind adoration to 
no President, no party, no administration. I know none of them as such in 
this frightful struggle for national life. I honor the man who makes this Gov- 
ernment stronger by showing its faults. But, sir, the utterances I have cited 
belong not to this class of truthful or reasoning exposures or rebuke of error in 
this Government. 

What, sir! tell Americans, who are not fools, and can read, that when the 
President arrests men such as Merryraan and Kane, engaged in murdering our 
unarmed soldiers in Baltimore, coming to rescue this capital from the ton'.h, or 
when he arrests those who were burning the bridges over which the}- came 
here, or who were acting in the plot to assassinate the President, he " struck 
down at a blow every badge of republican government," and is guilty of acta 
of despotism which the Czar dare not do! Why, sir, the audacity of this ac- 
cusation, that military arrests for the public safety in time of great danger are 
unprecedented despotism, is absolutely sublime. In the war for our institu- 
tions, and most of them under the general command of Washington, these mili- 
tary arrests were almost daily. Some were charged with "being inimical to 
the liberties of America," as in the case of Connolly and others in Maryland. 
Others with "damning General Washington and Congress," as in the ca^e of 
Kirkpatrick, of the same State. Others for expressing "sentiments inimical to 
America," and for "advising men to lay down their arms," as in the ease of 
Belmires, of the same State. Others for being "enemies to American liberty," 
as in the case of Joshua Testill, of the same State. Others for being " disaf- 
fected to the cause of American freedom," as in the case of twenty Friends 
taken from Philadelphia and imprisoned at Winchester, Virginia. Others for 
being suspected of being loyalists, as in the case of Colonel Henry Frey, of 
New York, imprisoned during the war, with others, at Hartford, Connecticut- 
Why, sir, under Washington, throughout the war, by military authority, and 
in disregard of habeas corpus, for the public safety, these ai'rests of dangerous 
men were almost universal. 

Tell Americans that these arrests are unheard-of acts of despotism, when 
they know that for such arrests at New Orleans by Jackson he received the 
plaudits of his Government; and for them by General Wilkinson, at the time 
of Burr's conspiracy, he was applauded b}- Mr. Jefferson, who said : 

"•On great occasions, every good ofDcer must be ready to risk himself in going beyond the 
Btricl liiif of law, when the public j)re8ervati()n requires it. His motives will be a justifica- 
tion, as far as there is any discreUun in his ultra-legal proceedings, and no indulgence of 
private feelings.'' 

" Your sending here Swartwout and Bollman, and adding to them Burr, Blennerhasset, 
and Tyler, should they fall into your hands, will be supported by the public opinion.'' 

"The Feds, and the little band of Quids, in opposition, will try to make something of the 



infringement of liberty by the military arrests and deportation of citizens ; but if it does not 
go beyond such offenders as Swartwout, BoUman, Burr, Bleuuerliasset, Tyler, &c., they will 
be supported by the public approbation." 

And these acts by Jackson and Wilkinson were done at a time when the 
public danger was to ours now as the summer breeze to the sweep of the hur- 
ricane. Tell us that these military arrests for "public safety" are unheard-of 
acts of despotism not dared to be made by autocrats, whea we know that, 
from the conspiracy of Cataline to the rebellion of Dorr, in every civilized 
Government under the heavens, they have been resorted to as a means of pre- 
serving the State ! And, sir, they never should be resorted to accept when 
necessari/ to preserve the State, and then with extremest care. Tell men not 
idiots that Mr. Lincoln's six hundred and forty days, possession of this Gov- 
ernment has divided this Union, inaugnrated the war, and brought all its con- 
sequences, when every man on the globe who reads any human language, 
from Esquimaux to English, knows that under Mr. Buchanan's administration 
this Union was (as much as now) divided, seven States had seceded, the rebel 
government was formed, the Pi'esident installed, the congress in session, an act 
matured calling out one hundred thousand militia to seize on Washington and 
assassinate the President, our army and arms seized in Texas, public property 
taken by the rebellion, and the Government's authority overthrown through- 
out one-fourth its limits 1 Tell us Lincoln commenced this war, when Walker, 
the rebel Secretary of War, on the 12th of April, 1861, boa?ts that they began 
it on that day by the attack upon Sumpter, and notified through his organs 
his array of seven thousand men and one hundred and forty cannon to be 
ready at a moment's notice to march upon and take this capital ; and this and 
innumerable other acts of war, all done before one effort was made by this 
Government even in preparation for self-defence ! 

Why, Mr. Chairman, by what name will history call such truthless assaults 
upon our beloved institutions and the Government, now when it needs so much 
the sympathy and support of all its children ? Are these treason ? Oh, no ; 
not treason, although they destroy the Government. They are not treason 
only because treason is bold and leaps to its ends by the "overt act." It is 
only because treason is bold, and takes the hazards of crime, that somebody 
said of it that treason multiplied becomes heroic, successful becomes patriot- 
ism. Why, sir, Cataline, as conspirator, at the door of the Senate, has receiv- 
ed the execrations of all history, and is pinioned over the door-way of every 
council chamber in Christendom. There, sir, over your door-way you see his 
bones yet, and acorn stands there pointing at them her slow unmoving finger. 
But Cataline as the captain, in flagrant war at Pistoia, has received from his- 
tory the sacred rites of sepulture. When Absalom stole from his father and 
king the hearts of the king's subjects, as he kissed the men of Israel beside 
the king's gate, Absalom was but a demagogue and thief. But to the memory 
of Absolom, in the wood of Ephraim, as a leader of open rebellion, the tears 
of his father accord the meed of a hero illustrious at least in crime. 

No, Mr. Chairman, these covered and furtive attacks upon this Government 
itself, which are made now by seeking to pursade the people that the crimes 
of their own Government are the causes of this rebellion against itself, are not 
technical treason, just because treason is no skulk or coward. And, sir, neither 
are they debate. Why, sir, debate is the contest of intellect with intellect, 
wielding in that contest truth — high, sublime, might}' truth — and if the com- 
batants have no other light, they have at least the sword-sparks stnick by 
the conflict from these their weapons. Michael or Ajax may be set down by 
poets as impersonations of high debate. But even Ajax, groping for an antag- 
onist and for light, is not such impersonation; much less is not debate the 
truthless dribblings of inanity as it stands there vacant and emasculated, mut- 
tering at each passer by its incoherent twaddle. Neither, sir, are these dia- 
tribes debate which, in this Hall or out, libel the loyal men of the north as the 
authors of our national calamities. 

These utterances are not debate, sir. Then, what are they ? Let them be 
forever to history what the ravings of the hags of the drama are to it, "a deed 
without a n!\me." 

Let us look a little at these accusations against the men of the North. The 
gentleman from Illinois says in effect, we brought the war wrongly, unjustly, 



by rejecting an honorable compromise, which was rejected the 2d of March; 
1861. This was after seven rebel States had seceded; organized a rebel goVi 
ernment ; inaugurated its president ; matured, in its congress, an act calling 
out one hundred thousand militia; surrendered our army in Texas, and ou:; 
forts, arsenals, navy-yards and other publie property to the rebellion ; and afte; 
the conspirators had taken a final leave of this Government in contemptuoui 
defiance of the Government and rejection of all compromise, and was in th- 
act of organizing its armies to march them on this capital to overthrow th* 
Government and to assassinate the President of the United States, and to 
seize upon the seat of his and of this Government's power. That was the pre 
else attitude of the rebels towards the "President and his friends" at tiie mo 
ment when that President and his friends, as the gentleman alleges, at last re 
fused to make with the rebels "an honorable compromise !" And that was th( 
attitude of affairs — mark it, Americans — when began the six hundred and 
forty-one days of this administration's existence, which the gentleman froa 
Ohio [Mr. Cox] in this House dares to insinuate have borne, as their terribh 
fruits, the destruction of three hundred thousand citizens, the division of thie 
Union into two belligerent parts, the bankruptcy and total debauchery of th« 
entire nation. Let this House and nation note this attitude of affairs when 
this honorable compromise was declined, and when these six hundred and 
forty-one days began, and then let us look a moment at these startling accusa' 
tions that we have brought this war and its awful fi-uits by rejecting honorabk 
compromise. 

Shall I argue with these honorable gentlemen the proposition that the Presi- 
dent and his friends could only compromise with rebels, whose knife was at 
their throats, honorably upon the supposition that our principles, which w, 
were required to abandon in the compromise, were so obviously wrong ait 
unjust that we and the people who'* elected Mr. Lincoln could not honestly en I 
tertain them as true ? If honestly entertained as wise principles of govern, 
ment, and just approved by the people, could the President and his friend; 
abandon them in obedience to the logic of the knife and the pistol, and abandor 
them at the very moment he was appointed by the people to execute them 
Would that, sir, be the gentleman's idea of an honorable compromise ? Let u: 
see. 

I now make an appeal which I know must reach the sense of manhood ai 
well as the patriotism of the gentleman from Illinois, and of every member or 
the other side. Had Mr. Douglas been elected on the doctrine of " populai 
sovereignty," and then had the New England States, or Ohio, pursued th( 
course of their Southern sisters and said, " We are unwilling to belong to t 
Government which protects slavery ; we are tired of what these men cull th< 
copartnership ; we will break it up, and will erect a Government of our own ;' 
and if they had seized the forts, arsenals, and public property of the whoh 
country, and had arrayed themselves in hostility to the Government, anc 
threatened to depose Mr. Douglas, and to take possession of the capital, and hac 
put their knife at the heart of Mr. Douglas, and at the heart of the gentlemar 
from Illinois, as the head of his Cabinet ; and then, in that posture of affairs 
had said to Mr. Douglas and his Cabinet, and to the people who elected him, 
"we will submit to your government and live under it if you will make witli 
us an 'honorable compromise;' just abandon your principle of 'popular sove- 
reignty ;' put into the Constitution our Chicago platform ; exclude populai 
sovereignty from the Territories forever; and do not stop there, but after yot 
have got the Chicago plat foi-m into the Constitution, put in a clause touchina 
it which shall say, as the Crittenden compromise did touching its ' slav(i 
code' which it injected into the Constitution, ' no future amendment to the Con 
stitution shall affect this article." , And then had New England said, "do this, 
and we ' black Republicans' will condescend to live under j'our government 
and will not cut its throat, and yours too. We offer you this 'liunorahle com 
promise.'' You can accept It or the knife. If you reject this honorable com- 
promise you will be the cause of th% war we will make on the Government: 
and will be the authors of the slaughter and bankruptcy it will bring, and o) 
our division of the Union and of our rebellion." Had Kew England done thii 
— and I beg pardon of noble New England for ever quoting this supposition 
which I do from Mr. Latham — would the gentleman fr-cxa Illinois have accept 



!i that most "honorable compromise?" "Would he, Mr. Chairman ? "Would 
e, my just-minded men of America ? "Would he do the thing described hy the 
oble Democrat, Rosecrans, just after the victory at Murfreesboro', which has 
lade him immortal, who thus speaks of the peace traitors of the North : 

" Tliey will liek the boots of these southern thieves and liars, who will turn around and 
ick them." 

Mr. Chairman, I take the question back. To ask it is not to- assume merely 
hat the gentleman from Illinois would have played the traitor by laying down, 
t the foot of monstrous, causeless rebellion, that Government which the peo- 
le had just given to him and made him swear " to protect and defend." It is 
ot to assume merely that he was too poor-spirited and too cowardly to defend 
principle he believed right, and which the people had just approved and in- 
rusted to him to defend as their chosen guardian. But it is to suppose the 
entleman from Illinois is a dog, and a very mean dog at that. Sir, if he 
j^ould not, and could not, make such a compromise without dishonor and the 
bandonment of all pretense of ours being a Government, then, in the name of 
' .11 tliat is high and holy in common justice and fair play, I ask how could v:e 
,bandon our principles and the Government at the bidding of rebellion, with 
.rancey's dagger at our heart ? » 

But, Mr. Chairman, there is still another reason why I should not suppose 
he gentleman, as a member of Mr. Douglas's Cabinet, would, upon our threat 
if rebellion, have "honorably" compromised away " the Constitution as it is" 
han the one I have given, that it is to suppose him a traitor, a poltroon, and 
\, very bad pup. That otlier reason, sir, is, that upon this very question the 
jentleman and all his party, but pre-eminently tliat gentleman, has been tested 
—ay, sir, most thoroughly tested. That gentleman, as the chosen and confi- 
dential representative of Mi*. Douglas, was at the national Democratic conven- 
tion at Charleston in April, 1860. "What he said there and did was to be taken 
10 be and was what Douglas said, and what Democracy North said. And, sir, 
iTancey was there too. And that same knife which is now red and dripping 
yith blood of patriots slain on a hundred battle-fields for the Union was there 
;oo. And that same torch was there, and in the hands of the same conspira- 
i>or8, which has fired this temple of our liberties. And there Yancey held that 
jSnife at the throat of the gentleman from Illinois, and applied that torcli to 
ohe funeral pyre on which they had stretched, for immolation to the Moloch of 
.'jlavery, the Democratic party. 

The gentleman then knew and said what Mr. Douglas, in effect, repeated in 
;he last public utterance of his lif?, that this attitude of Yancey and his co-con- 
spirators toward him and Mi". Douglas, at Chrleston, was one act in the plot 
[For the destruction of this Union by destroying the Democratic party. Sir, 
'3id you not know it? Did you not, in effect, say it? Have you not said so 
i>en thousand times out of this Hall and in it ? Did you not say what the whole 
Democratic party North have said, that then and there the conspirators meant 
to destroy the Democratic party first, and this Union next — to put out the 
■light, and then put out the light ? And, sir, then, too, the gentleman, with this 
?ame knife of rebellion at his throat, was tendered, by these same conspirators, 
a compromise — if he pleases, an " honorable compromise" — one which would 
'save the Democratic party, and, in his judgment, that would have saved this 
'Union. What was that compromise ? Let the country look at it now once 
djore. "What was that thing which the gentleman from Illinois, rather than 
agree to do, would destroy the Democratic party and thereby the Union? 
Whj% sir, it is to the " honorable compromise" said to be tendered to us in the 
^Crittenden compromise as Hyperion to a satjT. Here is the proposition offered 
:to the gentleman at Charleston, before which he preferred to take the sever- 
ance of the Democratic party and of this Union. It says : 

" It is the duty of the Ferleral Government in all its departments io protect vihen necessary 
the rights of persons and property in the Territories, and wherever else ita constitutional au- 
'Ihority extends.'' 

That was all he was required to accept as a compromise, and with it to take 
Mr. Douglas for President. That was the "slave code," the Breckinridge plat- 
form, the "honorable compromise" tendered to the gentleman, as he lay there, 
the great representative of Douglas squatter sovereignty, upon the funeral pile 



of the national Democracy, withfYancey's knife at bis throat. Take this " hon- 
orable compromise," the "slave cbde," and the negation of popular sovereignty, 
with Douglas and th ; preservation of the Union by the preservation of na- 
tional Democracj', or take the knife to Union and Democracy. Mind you, Mr. 
Chairman, Yancey did not ask that this "honorable compromise," the Breck- 
inridge platform, should be put into the Constitution, and that it should then 
be made, like the laws of the Medes and Persians, unalterable by all the people 
throughout all the ages. Oh, no, sir. They did not ask so much as that at his 
hands, but only that it should be put into a political platform — a thing brewed, 
like the hell- broth of the witches, from 

"Eye of mewt and toe of frog, 
Wool of bat, aud tongue of dog. 
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting, 
Lizard's leg, a/ld owlet's wing, 
For a charm of powerful trouble ;"' 

and then dashed away more quickly than brewed when its purposes are ended. 
And, sir, what was the action of the gentleman then, when, by letting into 
that thing of wind called a platform this protection to slavery, he could have 
preserved the Democratic party, and thereby, as he avers, the Union also, and 
could have elected Douglas and avoided this war, as they tell us ? Did he do 
it? For the sake of the national Democracy and of the Union did he doff 
his principles and make that " honorable compromise ?" Did he get upon his 
belly and eat just a little more dirt? No, sir ; oh no. Just when the gentle- 
man was in this attitude, with Yancey's knife at his party's neck, he received 
from Mr. Douglas this emphatic dispatch : 

"Accept the Cincinnati platform and Dred Scott; but go not a step beyond," 

Mr. ALLEN, of Illinois. I desire to ask the gentleman one question. "What 
authority has the gentleman from Ohio for making that assertion ? Does he 
state it from his own knowledge, or from information ; and if from informa- 
tion, what is the source of that information? 

Mr. SHELLABARGER. I stated it as an extract, verbatim, et literatim, et 
pimctuatim, from the reports of the proceedings of the Charleston convention, 
as they were given to us in the public papers at the. time the convention was 
in public session ; and it never has been, so far as I know, denied. 

Just then, too, it was that a distinguished delegate from Ohio, Mr. Payne, 
exclaimed in the convention, " we cannot recede from this ground of non-inter- 
vention without personal dishonor, and so help us God we never will." It was 
about the same moment when another delegate exclaimed, " I feel, praise the 
Lord, that I have got through eating dirt. I have eaten my peck, and I want 
no more." And it was then the gentleman rejected the "honorable compro- 
mise," divided the Democratic party, defeated Judge Douglas, which he avers 
divided this Union, and brought on this war. He did all this rather than aban- 
don a principle he believed right, and put its opposite into a mere platform. 
He and Mr. Payne could not put the opposite of their principle of noninter- 
vention into a platform, eyen for the sake of the Democracy and the Union, 
without " personal dishonor," and they swore by the God of nations and of 
men they never would. And, sir, what man or mouse has dared to wag tongue 
or tail at these men for not eating that peck of dirt at Charleston ? 

Sir, that was what he was asked but declined to do at Charleston, to save 
this Union by "honoroble compromise." What is it that was demanded of 
us? Here is the material pro-slavery term of that Crittenden compromise 
tendered, it is said, to us. It says: 

"In all the Territories south of 86° 30' slavery of the African race is recognized as ex- 
isting, and shall not be interfered with by Congress ; but shall be protected by all the de- 
partments of the territorial government during its continuance." 

Tliis provision applied to all future acquired territories. This proposition, 
let it be observed, is the very antipode of the leading principle on wliich Mr, 
Lincoln had just been elected, as that leading pi-iiiciple was incorporated in the 
eighth resolution of the Chicago platform, which excluded slavery from the 
territories. It was " personal dishonor " for Mr. Payne and Mr. Richardson to 
admit into their mere platform the opposite of their principles, not principles' 
just aflirmed by the voice of the people ; but it is " honorable compromise * 



for us to thrust into the Constitution of the United States, and to make it un- 
alterable forever, the very opposite of our principles which had just been 
affirmed by the voice of the nation. Why, Mr. Chairman, the gentleman has 
become patient beyond precedent, when it is not his, but our principles, our 
honor, our possession and administration of the Government, which are to be 
given up by this "honorable compromise." Since this rebellion has culmi- 
nated in flagrant war, he has exhibited the graces of meekness far beyond 
the examples of the patriarchs and prophets. Even Moses and Job have ceased 
to be respectable. The pi-imer uiust be changed now in order to vindicate 
"the truth of history;" and to the questions our mothers used to ask us in the 
nursery, " who was the most patient man ?" and " who the meekest man ?" in- 
steed of the answers being Job, Moses, both must now be answered William 
A. Richardson. 

It is true the gentleman's suffering is alleviated some in the fact that it is our 
suffering he proposes to tolerate, our honor he proposes to tarnish, our piinci- 
ples he proposes to sacrifice ; but still he is meek and patient, because in " this 
honorable compromise" he is now ready to make with armed rebellion he parts 
with his own principles of non-intervention as well as ours. And what makes 
his graces of patience arise to the absolutely illustrious and saintly is the I'act 
that this honorable compromise is to be made with the same men now in arms 
against him, who admonished the people of Charleston, when the gentleman 
and his fellow-delegates went there, to put an increased police force on their 
beat, and stronger locks on their doors to protect property and women from 
the danger which the presence of Northern Democrats had brought to the city. 
Why, sir, I remember that a man, once a most distinguished member of this 
House and of the Senate, whose eloquence surpassed Patrick Henry's, drew 
from oriental biography an example of meekness in the life of a Hebrew herds- 
man, who afterwards became a Hebrew king. He described the shepheid boy 
as being helped up the acclivities of Judea's mountains by adhering to the tails 
of Jesse's cattle; and as receiving with marked patience in his golden liair 
•what was coveted most for the enrichment of the impoverished soil in the val- 
leys below. That looks like patience. But even that example pales its inef- 
fectual fires before the luster of this modern example of meekness whicli we 
have in the gentleman from Illinois. 

Mr. Chairman, even my colleague [Mr. Vallandigham] was compelled, the 
other day, to admit that we could not in honor accept the Crittenden compro- 
mise ; and he makes us guilty of a " high crime" in holding our principles at 
all, and not in the refusal to part with them. He says : 

"But that party, most disastrously for the country, refused all compromise. How, indeed, 
could ihey uccept any? That which the South demanded and the Democratic and conser- 
vative parties of the Korth and West were willing to grant, and which alone could avail to 
keep the peace and save the Union, implied a surrender of the sole vital element of the 
party "* * * * * * * * 

" Sir, the crime, the 'high crime' of the Republican party was not so much its refusal to 
compromise, as its original organization ujion a basis and doctrine wholly incsnsistenl with 
the stability of the Constitution and the peace of the Union." 

Sir, the repetition now, and its use, to overthrow the Government, by those 
who aspire to speak for a great party, of this accusation, that the principle 
upon which Mr Lincoln was elected was so damnable as to make its holding a 
"high crime," and its affirmation by the people a just cause of rebellion, makes 
it proper that attention should be invited again, stale as it is, to what that 
hideous principle is. Here it is : 

" The States have the right, exclusively, to order and control their domestic institutions 
according to their own judgment ; and the Territories are, by the Constitution and com- 
mon law, free territory ; and when neces^^ary to secure to persons in the Territories their 
constitutional right to liberty, legislation to that end should be provided." 

This sir, is the precise substance of the whole principle making our "high 
crime." The States exclusive masters of their own domestic affairs, the Terri- 
tories free. The question I make with him who says this principle is a " high 
crime," and with him who says we caused the war by refusing to part with 
this principle is, was this principle so damnable in its character that vc oould 
have abandoned it without personal dishonor, while he could not abandon his 
principles at Charleston without such personal dishonor? That is the qutstion, 
sir. Gentlemen cannot dodge it, or blink it, or cover it up from the view of 



an intelligent people. Three words cover the -whole vast question: "Are 
Territories Free?" Is this doctrine so monstrous that we could not believe it — 
so monstrous that, just when it was solemnly sanctioned by the people, and a 
Government selected to defend it, it could be abandoned under the force of 
the logic of assassins and bullies, by an "honorable compromise?" What! 
Mr. Chairman, that the Territories ought to be free — a self-evident and mon- 
strous wickedness — to be instantly abandoned at the threat of treason the mo- 
ment treason demands it. Why, sir, in the name of history, of truth, and 
God, let us look at this. Favor to freedom and to free labor — non-favor to ex- 
tension of slavery and slave labor in the nev/ States and empires of this conti- 
nent! Who, sir, were and are the friends and advocates of this doctrine, which 
freemen are now demanded to dash to the dogs of rebellion the moment they 
bark at us? Why, sir, where did we learn that lesson? Who were our 
schoolmasters ? 

Will the gentleman from Illinois walk with me a moment in fancy? I take 
him to no porch of Zeno. I ask him not to the groves of Aristotle. Let him 
go with his head uncovered with me now, for I invite him into an august 
presence. That is not an unnatural fancy which lets the dead revisit " the 
glimpses of the moon," and which has assembled them again in Independence 
Hall as witnesses of the sad spectacle now before us, the death-struggle of the 
great Republic modeled after their teachings or formed by their hands. It is 
into that convocation that I invite gentlemen of this House and my country- 
men. Let us light up again that old hall, where they reassemble now, with 
the same lamps which shone down upon their benches when they were there 
before. Let the books be opened again from which these founders of our Gov- 
ernment read the precepts which guided them in our natal epoch. Let that 
focus of lights which fell upon the cradle of the Republic be again thrown iu 
full blaze upon us as we stand around what, alas, may be its grave. Let us 
look upon the shades of our fathers in the same illuminations which surrounded 
them when they made the Republic. There these lights are now hanging in a 
vast galaxy around the chamber where, in fancy, our mighty dead have come 
back. He who turns with most confidence to the teachings of our holy re- 
ligion, would first look towards the constellation in which are grouped the 
great teachers of that divine faith. In that group he will see Baxter, Paley, 
Whitfield, Clark, McKnight, Scott, Beattie, Butler, Godwin, and the whole 
. body of the representative minds of Christendom. Of the Protestant faith 
Wesley may be the central figure, and of the Catholic, Leo X : and all alike 
are saying in the language of Wesley — " Human slavery is the vilest thing 
that ever saw the sunlight," and in the language of Leo X, "not religion alone, 
but nature herself cries out against slavery." He who reveres the teachings 
of the great masters in public and international law, would first look at the 
light held by Blackstone and Montesquieu, and Sir William Jones and Grotius, 
where he would read their united testimony written over them all in the im- 
mort'il words of Grotius, that great father of the international law — "They 
who buy, sell, or abduct slaves or free men are men-stealers." He who bows 
reverently before the men who give laws to empires, policies to States, and 
character to civilization itself, would first see the light which came from the 
torch held in the hand of Fox and Burke and Clarkson and Wilberforce and 
and Pitt; and would read in that light the utterance of them all in the memo- 
rable words of Pitt — "It is injustice to permit slavery to remain a single hour 
in England." He who is most moved by the melodies of imperishable song, 
or is guided by the persuasive forces of high literary productions, would first 
see in this assemblage, Addison, Hannah More, and Dr. Johnson and their as- 
sociates in the world of letters, and would read, over them all, the words of 
Dr. Jolinson, written in light which ages have not dimmed, "No man is the 
property of another." He who bows with most reverence in the august 
presence of the common law, would first turn to that grand impersonation of 
that law which is over the very entrance to the Chamber where we now are, 
Lord Mansfield. What he holds in his hand is thejudgment of the King's Bench 
in the case of Sommersett; that thing which, upon the 22d day of June, 1772, 
belted with a zone of light the earth as far as goes that dominion " whose 
morning drum-beat following the sun and keeping pace with the hours circles the 
earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of martial airs of England;" 



and which spread all over the British dominions— nay, sir all over the ereat 

fmuL^c:" Th^ w' T"?^?H 'r r'''' ''' ^"^''-"^ s^ay^a vast and dLXg 
fn. 1 , The words Of that judgment, which are the most important, by 
far, ever recorded in judicial records, are still there, where they were whea 
the Republic was made. Read them : c^ weic wueu 

"The claim of slavery can never be surroRTED " 
pn jf ' ^T 9^^i''5f ail, high over all, central to them all, penetrating, pervadine 

diivPt . • f" g^^-^^^^^Dt, all law, all morality, and all civilization 

derive the springs and sources of their teixtence. It says : " As ye would that 
others should do unto you, do ye even so unto them " ^ 

f;nn,of/r°p*^'^S^^'' ^f ^ t''*" ''S«ts under which were formed the institu- 
tZ °t*'^*^, ^"^P^bt'c. I have sought, in fancy, to put them back again in the 
same chamber where they were the Government was formed. I have gath 
SlJl.nfl, P Vr'^'^W'' the shades of the men who stood around the 
cradle ot the Republic And as these pass before them let gentlemen be silent, 
toi in that procession shall pass by every one of our illustrious dead. Let them 
heed the sublime precepts to which, as they pass, each one of these will point. 
Ihese, heir precepts, are legible, yet, once traced in light, now, alas! retraced 
in a nation s blood. At the head of that processiou, sir, I see him whose bones 
sleep— do they sleep, sir,_ r^ow /—close by us at Mount Vernon. The sentence 
y^"*^.^^ Washington points the gentleman from Illinois is that one he uttered 
on the 9th of September, A. D. lYSG, just before he became President of the 
Convention whieh made the Constitution. In the name of the liberty which 
the sword of Washington won— in the name of the Constitution Wa.hingtoa 
made-in the name of the God Washington feared-I beg my country to read 
that sentence to which Washington point^s us as he passes by us in this may be 
funeral procession of his Republic. Here it is: "It is among my first wishes 

TO SEE some plan ADOPTED BY WHICH SLAVERY IN THIS COUNTRY SHALL BE ABOL- 
ISHED BY LAW." 

Next to Washington let Benjamin Franklin pass by us. He wrote, in part, 
the Declaration of Independence. His name is to the Constitution is linked 
with every glorious memory of the Revolution, is engraved upon the monu- 
ments which philosophy erects for her most illustrious sons, and his immortal 
epitaph she has chiseled there in the language of another republic— " Arinuii 
Julmen de ccelo, sceptnimque tyrannis." The words to which Franklin points 
us, as he passes by in the mournful procession, are the very last public utter- 
ances of his illustrious life ; and they come to us, gentlemen of the House, with 
startling emphasis, because they are words of prayer addressed to an American 
Congress. To Congress he says : 

trifficTn'our^ellou^me?" ''^'^' T^'^i ^''^^, '? ^^^^ f^-" discouraging every species of 
ri\tpnr.vnf "hnno . r ' M . ■ devise some means for removing lliia incon- 

Kstenc) of ctiaracter Irom the American people." 

My fellow-Americans, may I beg you, in the light of the dread events now 
around us, to read the words to which the great Franklin points us as he 
goes by ? ' 

Next to Franklin let the author of the Declaration of Independence come 
And as his great shade proceeds his finger is upon the words of his which con- 
secrated to freedom a vast empire, where now live six million freemen. Thev 
are : •' 

wJerexSua'i,j,"nistiluToV°'^^^ Northwest, neither slavery nor involuntary ser- 

Next to Jefferson, let Patrick Henry go by— a name connected with the 
springs and sources of our free institutions, and whose lustre would only be 
dimmed by any attempt at eulogy. And as he passes us by he repeats, in 
solemn emphasis, those ever-memorable words of his, bearing date the ISth of 
January, 1773 : ° 

inw H,!^ ^ "^""^ 7® P'^® '° ^^? ?"•■''>■ "•" <'"'■ religion to show that it is at variance with that 
of^rpi ,^o> r"^ M^-'T''y ^ ^''"®^'' ''^^^ ''^e time will como when an opportunity will be 
onered to abolish this lamentable evil." j >, ^ 

Let the father of the Constitution, Madison, go by next to the illustrious 
Henry. And as he goes, he points those who declare that we brought this war 



10 , " 

by our refusal to make slavery, by name, eternal in the Constitution, to his 
immortal words: 

"It is wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property m 
men." 

But nr we wearv in this review. There is, from the illustrious ones of that 
assemblage we have"^ imagined of our revolutionary <i-d no sjugle di^sentmg 
voiee. There pass by us, in the same procession of heroes, HamUton, and Chase 

and Wirt, and Crawford, and Mason and P^^^ii^J?"' ^°f/i"„'f S and 
Lowndes, and Monroe, and Tucker, ant Pinkney of Maryland and Lee, and 
Randolph, and ^W-all, as they pass by us-by speech ^^^^^ff, ^°*ij;,'5;;° 
the assemblies which formed our institutions, admonish us to see to it that tree 
dom shall be the law of the Republic. , , 

And, sir, did time admit of it, I would let these men point ^h^s Horj and the 
country again to their illustrious deeds. But these deeds in f^^^ "^ J^^^^^^^ 
are too%ast in number and importance to be recited ^^t that^one monu^^^^ 
of their wisdom and patriotism, erected by their hands '^V^',iTL,» There 
our national existence-the ordinance of 1787-sufhce for t^^'^^l^'^"^; , Jb^^'j 
that monument stands, its base resting upon and stretching ^^^^^^^'^^^^^^l 
the continent, and its top far above the stars In looking '^^ ^^ ^'^I^;' J^''^ 
its great author, Jefferson, exclaim of it, " have reared a ^^^"^ffrom IlS 
than brass, more enduring than pyramids." ^o^ld the gentleman from im 
nois, if he could, now tear down that monument ? Would l^^^^J^^^^^^J^^^"^ 
its summit or from its eternal base one stone or .«°^f'-«f»^,«°;,f, ?"' f*°°'^ 
Let him look at it now in its awful grandeur, as it stands before him it^ top 
"meeting the sun in its coming, the earliest light of the mormng gilding it, and 

^te^:?ci::sS^x:iSi:t^:^:;r^onstitutionappii^^ 

nance, excludin| slavery from all our then Territories, to our °ewfoi mo gov- 
ernment. Its beneficent provisions began at the ^^^^^^ern base of the Allegha 
Dies, and swept across the great States of Ohio, Indiana Illinoe far off to the 
Lakl of the Woods. It was passed by the very men who had "^^ "^"-^e je 
Constitution-passed early in the morning of the first days «/^^^^,^ l\«f,^^[°^ 
existence-passed when the young leaf upon our tree of liberty opened to the 
sun its first\erdure-pa8sed when the first oath by the men ^^^ /^^^ J^^f| 
the Constitution, had scarce escaped from their lips to ^"PP-^/^^f- '^'^^'^./^^^ 
scarce yet been i^egistered by God to whom it was adaressed, ^"^J^^ JPP^"^;^^ 
by Washington on the same day the War Department of this G«Te.nment was 
fi?st created. And, sir, after it was passed, it received the ^^^^^ [;°^^ ^^'^f ^^"^^ 
of Washington. Why, sir, in the light of the events •^f^^^.^''^^'^"^ 'S "^' ^" j 
of the teachings of to-day upon this floor, s it not a startling fac that one of 
the very first statutes ever passed by an American Congress, ^^^ one of the 
very first which received the approving signature of the first Pre.ident-of 
the man "first in war, first in piace, and first m the hearts of ^^ fellojv^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
zens"-provided that there should be no slavery forever in all tjie vast tern- 
tories then owned by this Government-provided V^-^^'fl^]fXlXvZ 
lion of the present Administration, the people declared ^o be the be.t for the 
whole country-provided precisely what a gent leman on his fiooi now alleges 
our favoring makes us the authors of this rebeUion, and he "|"rderers of the 
three hundi'^d thousand who have fallen in Mr. Lincoln s ^ix hundred and 
forty-one days; and provided what another f l^^, \ '"S^" ?LnPct but 
Chairman, will these gentlemen be-not just, for that we do not e:.pect-but 
■will they omit to be monsters? . , ,, _„„i;i f aV« as a 

Why, sir, shall I ask the gentleman f^o"! Illinois what he would take a^^^^^ 
consideration for the beneficent results of that great act of tefiitC^^^^^ 
and of Washington; that act under the power of which a 'i'^tion of me i, a 
Zst'llation of States, an empire of wealth and civihzation bas eape^^ like 
Minerva from the head of Jove, full grown and beautiful ? Let bim contrast 
S; mhana, Illinois, and the States'protected by that -g-^ure of ^Vaslnng- 
ton, ^ith their six million of free, bappy, and prosperous sons with the mo^^^ 
than Pmnires of wealth, and their six inland oceans of commeice, witn any 
otSereZ extent of slave territory upon which God's equally propitious sun 
and ralurdescend: and then answer me, not like the truckling demagogue and 



11 

partisan of slavery, but like what he is, the independent, high-souled, and sa- 
gacious statesman. Nay, sir, what would you take and have wre!<ted from the 
brow of your own great State of Illinois the crown of liberty whicli Wasliing- 
ton's signature, dated on the memorable 7th day of August, 1789, [>laced upon 
it? Why, Mr. Chairman, I will not ask him that question, for it is a^^king him 
whether, for not one piece of silver, he would have done against Illinois what 
Iscariot got thirty pieces for doing against Christ. I will not even ask what he 
would take now and have reversed in history the action of Randolph and hia 
associates, by which, on the 2d of March, 1803, they refused to permit slavery 
to linger for one hour in all the beautiful borders of his great State. And yet, 
Mr, Chairman, it was just what Washington and his First Congress did for us; 
just what Randolph did for Illinois; just that we sought to do for that vast and 
beautiful earth which stretches from the waters of the Mississippi to the Pacitic 
ocean, and where our children now plant 

"The seeds of empire future, broad, 
And rear the first altars to the Pilgrim's God." 

There toe wanted to do for our children what Washington did for us. And, 
Mr. Chairman, it was only the non-abandonment, at the bid of treason, by us 
of that desire that is denounced in this House as the cause of this lebellion 
against Washington's Republic. It is that which makes the six hundred and 
forty days of this Administration the murderers of three hundred thousand of 
our children I Sir, I might continue this exhibition of the precepts and deeds 
of our dead until it included them all. From sire to son these principles were 
transmitted and repeated. I might recite the teachings bj' Webster, repeated 
in his memorable declaration, that he would never do aught "to extend Afri- 
can slavery on this continent, or to add another slave State to this Union." I 
might point to that noble sentiment uttered by the great Clay, when, with a 
vehemence almost unlike himself, he declared that "no earthly power could 
compel him to vote to extend slavery into Territories now free." 

But I must here pause, and let down the vail which hides from us the exam- 
ples of these great men. Sir, if the Republic must perish, let all these holy 
memories of its origin, to which I have alluded, and the names of its founders 
perish also ; and let that vail never rise again to agonize the heart of a perished 
people by the memories of the frightful delusion under which our experiment 
m free government was begun — a delusion, a lie, enunciated in those words 
upon which that experiment was begun — that " all men by nature are entitled 
to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;" and, sir, let their names perish from 
among men who deceived their children into the belief that "neither slavery 
nor involuntary servitude ought to be extended except in punishment of 
crimes." I, sir, have not exhibited again for the ten thousandth time the words 
and deeds of these men of the past, in the vain hope of convincing the gentle- 
man from Illinois or any one who says that the non-abanJonment of our princi- 
ples at the bid of rebellion caused this war, that Washington and Franklin and 
Madison and Jefferson and Patrick Henry and Burke and Wilberforee and 
Blackstone and Grotius and Mansfield and Wesley and Baxter and Addison 
and Clay and Webster were right. Nay, sir, not in the hope to convince him 
that the universal conscience, example, and heart of modern Christian civiliza- 
tion is right. In obedience to these, at the period of our Revolution, from the 
vast dominions of the English, human slaverj', like a bird of evil, took its ever- 
lasting flight ; and in obedience to these it has been banished forever, since our 
Revolution, from France, Sweeden, Denmark, Russia, the Di*ch West Indies, 
and, indeed, from about every civilized people upon the face of the globe. 
Nay, sir, not in the vain hope to convince them that the teachings of all these 
and of the divine revelation is right, whose sublime precepts do inculcate a 
benevolence which, to adopt the words of Patrick Henry, "is at variance with 
THAT LAW WHICH WARRANTS SLAVERY." I have not passed before him, in the 
cerements of the tomb, all these the founders of our free institutions, each one 
as he passes repeating those words of Washington — " It is among my first wish- 
es to see some plan adopted hy which slavery in this country shall be abolished 
by law," in the hope that the teachings of Washington and of all his illustri- 
ous associates and of all modern civilization would be preferred to the teach- 
ings of the Charleston Mercury. But I have cited these examples and deeds of 



12 

history again for other purposes. One is that for which the Irish lawyer cited 
Blackstone to the drunken judge, to remind him what a fool Billy Blackstone 
was. I want to show hiuj what blockheads Grotiua, Burke, Addison, Black- 
stone, Milton, Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin, and "Webster, and Clay 
were. And the other reason for these citations is to show him that when he 
bids us to abandon our principles at the threat of rebellion he bids us abandon 
what we had been fooled into believiug, not merely by the precepts and exam- 

Eles of all the great men of this Republic without one illustrous exception, but 
y the precepts and example of every truly great man who has lived for two 
hundred years, and by the united voice and example of the entire christianized 
world. I wanted to show him not tha.t Washington and Grotious and the Bible 
and modern civilization were right, but only that when we declined, by an 
"honorable compromise" with Yancy's whip at our backs, to swap the princi- 
ples of Patrick Henry for those of mud-sill Hammond, we have some apology 
for bringing on this \jar in the fact that we were deceived into believing our 
principles by the teaching of all good men and good Governments which have 
existed for a century. I have cited them to show him that if it would have 
been dishonorable compromise for him to be bullied out of his principle of 
"squatter sovereignty" by Yancey at Charleston, because he had reasons to 
believe in it, then it would be dishonorable compromise in us to be bullied out 
of our principles at Washington by Benjamin or Toombs or Mason, because we 
had reasons to believe in oui-s. 

But, Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman is right when he says it would have 
been honorable compromise for him to have got upon his belly at Charleston, 
before Toombs and Yancey and begged pardon for having dared to hold any 
principle, and especially that of popular sovereignty, and to have meekly 
taken in its place " the slave code ;" and if it would be " honorable compro- 
mise," had Mr. Douglas been elected, for him and Mr. Douglas to prostrate 
themselves before the Republican party with their hands upon their mouths 
and their mouths in the dust, crying " unclean — unclean — if you Republicans 
only will not rebel and assassinate Mr. Douglas, we will gladly put your prin- 
ciples into the Constitution and make them eternal, and will never hold any of 
our own any more, and will ask pardon for ever having gone so far as to put 
any even into a platform ;" if he is right in saying that it would have been 
honorable compromise in us, just when the principles of Washington and his 
compeers were by the voice and approval of the people intrusted to us for ad- 
ministration, to abandon them when mud-sill Hammond cracked his whip at us ; 
yet, sir, it is monstroualj-, absolutely, and incontestably an error to assert that 
these conspirators would have given us even that " honorable compromise." 
Utterly polluted with dishonor as we would have been, as we lay there pros- 
trate in tilth before the rebellion, begging to be permitted to exchange Wash- 
ington's principles for Bull}- Brooks's by " honorable compromise," they would 
have spit upon us and kicked us, instead of giving us the " honorable compro- 
mise" of the gentleman from Illinois. 

In proof of this let us submit facts to a candid world. Mr. Douglas, what- 
ever he may have previously said in hot debate, said in the last public utter- 
ance of his life : "There never was a time since the inauguration of Washing- 
ton when the rights of the South were safer under the law than they are now." 
" The slavery question was a mere pretext" for this rebellion. The rebellion is 
the result of " an enormous conspiracy formed more than twelve months ago." 
If Mr. Douglas told the truth when he declared that the rebels had no more 
cause to rebel wlren they did than they would have had on the 80th of April, 
1789, the day Washington was inaugurated — and Mr. Douglas said that is so — 
will the gentleman say to me that our debasement of ourselves at the feet of 
the rebels by abandoning our principles and accepting theirs would have broken 
up that enormous conspiracy, made their rights more secure, which were as se- 
cure as when Washington was inaugurated; or would they have permitted 
themselves to be robbed by our prostration before them of their coveted " pre- 
text?" Would they, sir? If he will so say, then I will submit another proot 
" Douglas did not know," will the gentleman say, " whereof he affirmed when 
he said that the slavery question was a mere ' exctise' for the rebellion ;" and 
that they were " as safe when they rebelled as they were under Washington ;" 
Douglas was not very familiar with public affairs ; had not seen much of this 



13 

rebelJom ; did not know the plans and movements of the conspirators ; and 
was not a close or shrewd observer of men ; and what is worse, was born in 
New England. Douglas lied when he declared tlie slavery question was a mere 
"excuse." Be it so; let the gentleman from Illinois pass Douglas too into the 
rear along with the blockheads "Washington and Madison and Franklin and 
Grotius. 

I next take as my witness Reverdy Johnson — a southern man, not guilty of 
being born in Kew England. Does he know something about the southern 
heart? He, upon the 7th of May, 1861, at Frederick, Maryland, used these 
words : " The truth is, and I regret to believe it, that a. fear of the violation of 
southern rights was with the promoters of this rebellion a mere pretense." 
They feared " the power was passing from them." Did this the Soutlrs cham- 
pion in the great Dred' Scott case, and one of its greatest intellects, knoiu this 
South ? or did he falsify when he declared, that when they rebelled they did 
not even have vifear of the violation of any southern right? Does the gentle- 
man reply, that " Johnson was not of the rebels, and not very smart, and did 
not know as well as I why they rebelled," and that compromise and security of 
their rights was what rebels wanted? Very well; let Johnson, tlie giant in- 
tellect of the South, pass into the congregation of the fools, along with Jeffer- 
son aud his associates, who were ignorant as to the I'ights and interests or designs 
of these rebels. I will now call as my next witness, a man who will come up 
to the standard which entitles him to speak as to what the rebels would have 
done in compromise. Yancey, the prince of the rebels, whose keen blade the 
gentleman from Illinois felt at Charleston, wa?, perhaps, as well posted as to 
the secrets of the rebellion as even the gentleman from Illinois. Let this 
House, this country, history, hear and write down, with pen of iron and point 
of diamond, every word of this utterance of the master of the rebellion ; and 
let it never perish from the records of human wickedness. Let the gentleman 
from Illinois be careful to mark each word. Its date is material, and is De- 
cember, 1861. He says : 

"No proffered compromise; no amendments to the Constitution, no proffered additional 
guarantees, can delay her (the South's) action for iudependeiice one momcut. There is no 
defect in the fundamental law ; therefore it needs no alteration." 

Did Yancey know as well as he of Illinois whereof he spoke ? Did that 
man know ? He was selected by the rebel South to be their mouthpiece at 
Charleston, and whose speech there was to annihilate " squatter sovereignty " 
and Democracy, and to complete the first act in this infernal drama of rebel- 
lion and murder. Sir, did he know whether they wanted " honorable compro- 
mise." No, say the gentlemen in this House, who alleged that we caused this 
war by rejection of compromise. We know better than Yancey, the Beelzu- 
bub of this secession, what its secrets were. This statement of Yancey was 
but the unofficial statement of an individual, and he did not know what the 
rebels want. Very well, sir. Let Yancey, as an individual, also pass into the 
company of simpletons, who are not wise in the designs of the rebellion, and 
who do not comprehend the Southern heart ; and I now call a group of wit- 
nesses. I now call no unofficial testimony or individual averment. 1 take the 
solemn official announcement made by the three commissioners of the rebel 
government, speaking through Lord John Russell to Parliament, to lOurope, and 
the world. This is not the twaddle of pothouse politicians, nor the inflamed 
rhapsodies of ranters ; but it is the authorized, calm, cautiously worded, and 
official enunciations of the views, purposes, and judgment of the rebellion, 
which it has chosen to record about itself in imperishable histor}-. Sir, will 
the gentleman accept this utterance of the commissioners Yancey, Host, and 
Mann as evidence of what concessions or compromises they wanted? These are 
their words, which bear date the 14th August, 1861 : 

" It was from ow fear that the slaves would be liberated that secession toolc place The 
very party in power had proposed to guaranty slavery forever in the Stated, if the South 
would but remain in the Union." 

Will the gentleman, in .the teeth of this solemn official utterance by the 
diplomatic representatives of this huge treason, in which they aver that they 
did not leave the Union from any " fear " as to their slaves, persist in declar- 
ing that they lied, and did have fears which themselves disclaimed, and which 



14 

compromise would have assuaged ? Will he still persist in being wiser than 
the combined wisdom of the rebellion, as to the secret motives and suppressed 
fears of these rebels? If he will still persist, and will say these are but words 
and not deeds, then I point him to deeds — most emphatic, deliberate, and con- 
vincing — which shall show Mr. Latham's, Mr. Douglas's, and Mr. Johnson's 
statement to be most true, that these men wanted no compromise, had no 
"fears" as to their rights, but were acting upon " a fixed plan to break up 
the Government." 

My countrymen, among these deeds look next at the action of your owa 
Government, done to conciliate these rebels. After thej', by withdrawing from 
Congress, gave all the power to the loyal States, you organized all your Ter- 
ritories into three Governments, and in each you not only not did exclude 
slaveiy, but you expressly enacted that all property should be protected ; so 
that, if Dredd Scott dicta were law, you protected slavery in every inch of 
American territory not theretofore organized. You, at the same time, by a 
two thirds vote in each branch of Congress, passed amendments to the Consti- 
tution, whereby Congress was expressly prohibited from ever disturbing sla- 
very in tlie States. You passed unanimously a resolution declaring that Con- 
gress had no power or inclination to touch slavery in the States. The Execu- 
tive, in the most solemn form, protested the same purpose not to disturb their 
domestic institution. 

May I ask you, my fellow-citizens, who are not quite insane with partizau 
madness, did not Yancej', Rost, and Mann tell the truth when they said they 
had no fears for slavery, and tiiat " the party in power had proposed to 
guaranty it forever in the States?" Did not Douglas tell the truth when he 
declared " that the rights of the South never stood firmer under the law than 
when the}' rebelled," and that "there was never a day since Washington was 
inaugurated that they had not as good a cause for rebellion as when they did 
rebel?" 

But, sir, add to this the fac t that Wigfall, Benjamin, Hemphill, SI idell and John- 
son, of Arkansas?, in their seats in the Senate, on the vote on that compromise 
on the 2(ith of January, 1861, by refusing to vote, helped to defeat it; and 
then add to that the fact that ilr. Lincoln's friends, before the rebellion, were 
in the minority in both branches of Congiess, and in the Supreme Court, and 
could not raise by law money to pay one soldier, to buy one gun or one pound 
of powder; could not make one brigadier general, one secretary, one foreign 
minister, pass one law or one resolution, nor do one legislative or judicial act 
•which did not meet the approbation of these rebels who left Congress. And 
in view of all tliese, of all these solemn declarations of the ablest and most 
thoroughly intelligent statesmen of the North and South, loyal and rebel ; in 
view of all tliese irresistible facts of palpable and recent history, what is the 
name of that statement that we forced these men into rebellion by refusal to 
secure their rights by compromise, or that they would accept at our hands 
compromise, however dishonorable to us, or fatal to all constitutional and pop- 
ular government? Sir, I know of no speech or phrase of power enough to 
reach down to the depths of the perfidy that justifies this treason, which 
drinks up at once a nation's liberty and blood, and which puts that treason's 
crimes upon the heads of those who are the victims of its foul murders. 

Mr. Chairman, my colleague, [Mr. Vallanoigham,] in his recent remarks 
in this House, plumes himself upon the sagacity and foresight which enabled 
him to fortell that the Avar for the Union would ignominiously faih Sir, it 
may fail. 1 have opinions not like his as to the abilit}' of a great people to 
defend the only institutions in the world which stand for popular liberty and 
self-govei'nment. But I need not state these opinions here. The gentleman 
may be right, and this i)eople may be so craven as not to defend by the sword 
the institutions and liberties which \Vashington,5under God, won by the sword. 
But, sir, let heaven, earth, and hell be witnesses of what I say ; if this strug- 
gle should, as the gentleman says it will, ignominiously fail to. deliver the 
Union and Government from a rebellion against the right of popular suffrage, 
against republican institutions and the liberties of the poor man — for, mark it, 
that is what the rebellion is — then, sir that failure will be the result of efforts 
here to alienate the people of this Government from its support, and of the 
meditated purpose of northern conspirators to unite us to the government of 



15 

the rebellion. And, sir, should tliat. ruin be in reserve for us, which God for- 
bid, and should at last be realized, the hideous promises made by northern 
men to these traitors, which urged and invited and at last induced the blow 
from the rebellion — promises that one-half the North would sustain thera in 
the infernal treason — then, sir, history will record high in the rolls, where she 
registers the names of the masters in this work of infamy, the name of them 
who made these promises. And, sir, in the Inferno of some future Dante who 
shall trace the spirits of tliose who are tlie architects of this hideous ruin, the 
infernal limner will paint in foreground upon his canvass of mingled fire, blood 
and tears, among theii chiefs tiiom who incited the rebellion by promising to 
this treason, as its best ally,, one-half the North, and whose treachery to their 
country at last made the hellish promise good. 

Why, sir, the gentleman's book of prophecy of the failure of a free people 
to repress a rebellion against their liberties, of which he is so boastful on this 
floor, and which he boasts that time, his avenger, has so nobly vindicated, has 
not in it the abominable merit of the sybilline books, of foretelling, in ambig- 
uous utterances, events in whose coming the prophets had no action. The gen- 
tleman is proud that he could foresee and foretell the failure of the war for the 
Union. Sir, did he forget that so could Fulvia foretell the day on which Cicero 
was to be assassinated in his house? So could Cethegns foretell the day on 
which Catiline would be at the gates of Korae. So could Catesby foretell that 
Guy Fawkes would be, with matches in his pocket, under the House of Parlia- 
ment upou the 5th of November, 1G05. So could Benedict Arnold foretell that 
Sir Henry Clinton was to be at West Point upon the 25th of September. And 
so could Iscariot foretell that the Son of Man would be betrayed by a kiss. 
Should these prophecies of the failure of this Government to defend itself 
against the sword of this conspiracy prove true, as they will should the great 
and hitherto loyal Democrac}' of the North follow his lead, it will be, sir, be- 
cause these prophets who foretell our overthrow shall succeed in making good, 
at last, to the rebellion their pyledges made years ago, that a "majority of 
northern men were ready to fight the South's battle on our ground," and would 
be at last brought under the banners of that rebellion. The gentlemen de- 
nounces the war b\' our Government in defense of its authority and existence 
as the first attempt in history* by any Government to enforce the obedience and 
respect of its subjects, as an absurd, wicked, and preposterous failure. It is 
unprecedented and monstrous to compel rebels to obey and respect a good 
Government, in this man's logic and history I 

Why, sir, whose history has the gentleman read? Not Rome's, for Rome 
killed Catiline at Pistoia. Not England's, for England has a hundred Sedge- 
moors. Not the United States, for that pmt down Burr's conspiracy and the 
whiskj' rebellion. Not JefF Davis's, for that quells the rising in Georgia against 
the conscription. Not the Utopia of Sir Thomas Moore, for that had laws. He 
has not studied the parts of tliat one hour of dreams he gave us upon this 
floor, because during that brief hour he preserves not the decent method there 
is in madness. He, in one breath, denounces as tyranny and monstrous delu- 
sion this war of the Government, waged to keep its capital, its forts, its mints, 
its harbors, and its territory, and to secure to all its citizens the right to follow 
to the Gulf the waters of the Mississippi with travel and trade. And then he 
tells us in the ne.xt breath that we mean to compel this river, from source to 
mouth, to remain free to our entire people, and that we "must and will follow 
it with travel and trade, not by treati/, but by right, freel}', peaceably, and 
without restriction or tribute, under the same Government and flag, to its 
home in the bosom of that Gulf." 

Why, sir, this last breath, taken by itself, sounds belicose — very. Its "must 
and will" is portentous of war. Should Jefferson Davis not be in a melting 
mood when the gentleman gets to the front of his batteries at Vicksburg, and 
should the almost irresistible blandishments of the gentleman's exquisite man- 
ners — adorned as he is with a tiara on his brow set with those gems his speech 
describes the "slave code," the "right of transit," the " right of sojourn," and 
all this family of brilliants, and accompanied with a regal train of blood- 
hounds — not overcome the obdurate affections of Mr. Davis, nor silence his 
batteries at Vicksburg, then the "must and will" of this sentence looks as if 
our Lothario actually meditated "creating love by force and developing fra- 



16 

terbal affection by -war," and meant to make love to the batteries at Vicksburg 
by the persuasions of bayonet and ball. But, sir, when you put this sentence 
along with the ones preceding, in which all courtships by coercion are de- 
nounced as, utter, disastrous, and wicked folly, the villainous compound does 
not approach to the dimensions of third-rate rhodomontade, nor to the dignity of 
decayed gibberish. What, sir, in one breath tell us that this Government -'must 
and will" have, "by right," the free navigation of the Mississippi, Davis's bat- 
teries and the world to the contrary notwithstanding, and in the next tell us that 
the effort of this Government to day to enforce that free navigation is unpre- 
cedented and monstrous wickedness! Why, sir, the gentleman, as I have said, 
is not mad, for there is some method even in ij)adness. What, then, is hia 
speech? Sir, I admit I do not know, and think the country will label it as 
Barnum named the thing in his gallery of queer things, which was neither man 
nor monkey, and which he called ''What is it?" 

Sir, the gentleman outdoes the philosophers of Dean Swift, or somebody else, 
•who organized a corporation to put out the sun and light their world with 
sunbeams extracted from cucumbers. His sagacity would be just equal to 
theirs if he had stopped when his rhapsodies against coercion were ended; 
and when be had got up a Government with a Constitution, but with no 
power to "protect or defend it;" with laws, but with no authority to compel 
subjects to obey them ; with a capital, but with no right, owing to habeas cor- 
pus, to arrest the Guy Fawkes who was about to blow it up ; with a President, 
made commander-in-chief of its armies to quell insurrection, but with no armies 
to command, nor any right to command them ; with exclusive control of its 
navigable rivers, but with no right to navigate them; had he, I say, stopped 
then he would have been just as wise as the cucumber philosophers. But 

foing on, after he has got up this admirable form of government, to tell us in 
is most coercive and unlove-making manuer, with teeth gritring, arms defiant, 
nostrils distended, lips compressed, fists clenched, face upturned, with the whole 
man on tip-toe exalted, and eyes " in fine frenzy rolling," that this Govern- 
ment "must and will" have, by right, and not by treaty or tribute, the free 
navigation of the Mississippi river, Jeff Davis nolens volens; then, sir, is when 
I get " bothered." And, Mr. Chairman, it is the duty of every member of 
Congress, in imitation of the gentleman, to quote some poetry in every speech 
upon this floor. In obedience to that duty, and in dedication to the lofty genius 
of the gentleman from Ohio for subduing rebellions without coercion, and by 
the matchless seductions of the "compromise" which will "preserve the Con- 
stitution as it is" by changing it so as to fit each rebellion as it comes along, 
and which will " enforce the laws " by altering them so as to legalize each 
murder committed against them, I quote from the Melodies of the Kingdom of 
Lilliput: 

" There was a man who loved a maid, who loved the maiden much ; 
The itiaid disliked his form and size, and would not marry such. 
Tou like, said he, the mouse I'm told— the mouse in form and size; 
I'll be a mouse to suit your views — a mouse by compromise." 

Sir, the life of the Republic will be decided speedily. That existence self- 
evidently depends on those who made it — the people. Should the mass of the 
northern Democracy, in obedience to the counsels of my colleague, [Mr. Val- 
LANDiNGUAM,] withdraw their support from this Government in its struggle 
against rebellion, then, as he predicts, we are defeated and lost. If they should 
follow those of such patriots and Democrats as he of Pennsylvania, [Mr. 
Wright,] for whose recent speech all patriots thank him and history will honor 
him, and of such distinguished patriots and Democrats, as Wright of the Senate, 
Butler, Dix, Rosecrans, and scores of other Democrats in the Army, in this 
House, and in places of public trust and of privite influence, then, sir, the re- 
bellion will be overthrown, and the Republic will live to protect and bless us 
and our children and our children's children for ages ; will live under " the 
Constitution as it is and the Union as it was," not when Senators were stricken 
down in their own blood in the Senate Chamber for words spoken in debate, 
and when all over the South men were murdered for repeating the sentiments 
of the Doeluration of Independence, but as it was when, in its golden age, 
Washington and Madison we re fathers and Preside nts of the Republic. 
Towers, printers. 















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